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In Kingdom of Without, Andrea Tang pens a story about socioeconomic class differences and the challenges that those in the lower classes face just to survive. To tell her story, Tang creates an allegory that bumps up against truth and gives the reader ample food for thought. Set in Beijing, nearly 150 years since General Yuan Shikai successfully declared himself the Emperor of China in 1915, the story opens in the Sixth Ring, where a seventeen-year-old street urchin is getting new prosthetics from Ge Rong. An art and engineering savant who is talented not only with biohacks, Ge Rong engineers tools and techniques for aRead More →

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Paz Valenzuela and Rumi Sabzwari are two teens from different worlds. Both are disillusioned by their respective lives where people seem motivated by violence and vengeance. Not much for following rules, Paz lives in Paraíso where bomb craters, charred towers, and wasteland from chemical weapons make up the landscape. Born with a birth defect because of the residual effects of bioterrorism, Paz prays for patience and strength to know that one day things will change. Although Rumi doesn’t remember the Hot Wars which resulted in the building of Upper City’s walls, he knows the stories. Recently back from rehabilitation after a drug overdose, Rumi isRead More →

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The year is 2118 and New York City is home to the Tower, a skyscraper that spans dozens of blocks and has a total of one thousand floors, “the biggest structure on earth, a whole world unto itself” (7). Telling the sprawling story of five teenage tower dwellers of varying ages, genders, races, and tower levels, Katharine McGee intersects their lives into The Thousandth Floor, a drama worthy of comparison to television’s Gossip Girl or Pretty Little Liars. Avery Fuller is the wealthiest of the main cast, living on top of the world on the thousandth floor. It’s no secret to her friends that herRead More →

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The Diseray, a nearly apocalyptic war between Othersiders and humans, has completely altered life on Earth in Mercedes Lackey’s new novel, Hunter.  After the Diseray, the world was rebuilt, laid out to protect the elite from monsters that began to cross over from the Otherside, invading Earth with frequency and with impunity.  Mythical beasts like Harpies, Furies, and Kraken, and multiple other manifestations of terror—like Knockers, Gazers, Jackals, Drakken, Ketzels, and Redcaps—have made Hunters necessary protection. In this new world, where most meat is vat-grown and eggs and dairy are synthesized from vegetable oils, economic disparity is glaringly obvious.  Real meat, eggs, and dairy areRead More →